Hit 100 native plants in my yard this spring and it snuck up on me

I started swapping out grass for native stuff about 2 years ago... just one bed at a time. Last week I counted and I'm at 102 different species now, all things that grow wild within 50 miles of my house in central Ohio. The thing I keep seeing people mess up is they buy a plant that's native to the general region but not their specific soil type or rainfall zone. I wasted $80 on some blazing star that never made it past July because my clay holds water too long. Has anyone else figured out a good way to check if a plant will actually handle your local conditions?

2 comments

2 Comments

amy_sanchez8d ago

Did you ever try checking your local extension office website? I'm in central Ohio too and found that Ohio State has a whole list of plants sorted by soil type and sun conditions. For my clay, I swapped to swamp milkweed and blue flag iris, those tough things survived a whole wet spring without rotting. I also dug a little test hole in each bed and filled it with water to see how fast it drains before I plant anything new. What kind of blazing star did you try, because some cultivars just don't handle our heavy clay?

sullivan.abby8d ago

Look I'm gonna push back on this a little because I had the exact opposite experience with extension office advice. I went to the Ohio State site you mentioned and picked out a bunch of their "heavy clay tolerant" plants including some swamp milkweed and a purple coneflower variety they recommended. Both of them just sat there looking sad for two years before finally dying during a dry spell we had last August. Meanwhile I have this random daylily I stuck in the ground next to my driveway that gets zero special treatment and it's thriving like crazy even though it's not on any official list. I think sometimes these university recommendations are too generalized and don't account for whatever weird microclimate you get in your actual backyard. The test hole thing with water is smart in theory but I did that and my clay drained super slow so I avoided plants that need good drainage only to have everything rot anyway because that particular summer was just relentless with rain.